


Sam Winchester and his relationship with Knives

by writingforthelonelysoul



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with Sad Ending, Gen, Heavy Angst, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Harming Sam Winchester, Suicidal Sam Winchester, john winchesters A+ parenting, tw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:53:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingforthelonelysoul/pseuds/writingforthelonelysoul
Summary: This fic makes an attempt to portray Sam's relationship with self-harm and suicidal ideation. Starting when he was a teenager, up until the end of season five. Mildly canon non-compliant.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester, Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel & Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester & John Winchester, Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Jessica Moore/Sam Winchester, John Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 23





	Sam Winchester and his relationship with Knives

**Author's Note:**

> There is a huge trigger warning for self-harm. Please do not read if you are triggered by mentions of self-harm and suicidal ideation. Proceed with caution. If you or anyone you know are suffering from thoughts of suicide and/or self-harm, call your national helpline.

The first time he held a blade to his arm, he was 12. Their mother’s death anniversary was yesterday, and Dad had taken Dean on a hunt to keep both of their minds off of it. Dad had come back drunk, and passed out immediately on the couch, fully clothed. Dean had a long gash running down his left bicep, which had been stitched up.   
Dean went to bed, and Sam was alone in the tiny motel room, and he was thinking about his mother’s death, and he was thinking about how he had killed her. He was thinking about his father, who he knew didn’t love him, and he was thinking about how he didn’t deserve to be loved because he was unclean, he was contaminated. He just wanted to be pure, the way Dean was, he wanted to be good, the way Dean was good and righteous, the way he was everything Sam was not.   
The first cut was the tipping edge. He was numb to the pain, he couldn’t feel anything, so the next slice came, and the next, and the next, until there was blood dripping down the sides of his arms.   
He wrapped it up, cleaned the blood, and he felt relieved. For now, a bit of the dirty, bad, rot, was outside his body. For now, he was clean. 

Dean wondered why he never saw his brother in short sleeves anymore. 

The second time was only a few weeks later. There was a new town, and it had a good school, and he had made a friend, and he didn’t want to leave. But Dad was getting back today, and Dean had told him to pack.   
He was in the bathroom, and his knife was right there, and so he took it and cut up the other arm this time. If he couldn’t stay, at least his blood would. This way, the town would remember him. This way, he could come back. 

Sam was 17 when he started to think that maybe, just maybe, something could be wrong with him. And not wrong in the dirty, other, way, but wrong in his head, the way normal people had the luxury of being wrong.

He stopped when he met Jessica. She was a whirlwind who took one look at the tall, thin, brooding, scared-looking puppy, and she knew he was going to be hers. She convinced him to talk to a counselor, but Sam knew that it wouldn’t do any good, he couldn’t talk about monsters without being labeled crazier than he was.   
He stopped because he saw a future. He stopped because he had hope again. He was going to build a life with Jess, and it was going to be a safe life, a happy life.   
His cuts had turned into soft, silver lines on his arm that were visible only when the light caught them a certain way by the time he bought the ring. There were no fresh ones.

His hope burned with her on the ceiling. And suddenly it was like he had never left, there was a new monster, and a new problem to solve. Sure, Dean was with him, and Dean would listen, but he didn’t know how to talk to someone that wasn’t her. When they caught up with the demon, he ran into the burning house and he choked on smoke and he felt his skin burn, and was this how burning alive felt?   
The demon escaped, but the worst of it was that Sam came out of it alive. 

Another part of his soul died when his father did. Sam was sure his father never had truly loved him, not like he had loved Dean, but his father was gone and he hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. That day, he put his knife to his skin and tore it open for the first time in four years. 

When he woke up in Cold Oak, he knew immediately something was wrong because the bad, dirty, wrong, had never burned so brightly before. It was relieving, in a way, when he found out he had demon blood in him, at least now he knew he could be clean if he bled himself dry.   
He could be clean if his blood was gone.   
The knife in his back was welcome, because he was sure they bled people dry in hell, and he was sure that was where he was going. 

He cut himself when he woke up alive. He couldn’t cut deep enough when he found out what Dean had done. He wanted to scream into his face, tell Dean that he was not worth his life, he was not worth the life of someone like Dean.   
He had an idea when he was stuck in the Trickster’s loop. The day reset when Dean died, so maybe the way out of it was for him to die instead? He tested that theory, and he tested it again when he woke up alive to The Heat of the Moment. 

He tried to kill himself when Dean was dragged away by the hellhounds, but Ruby found him before he could finish, and she told him he had a job, that he had to kill Lilith, that he had to bring Dean back. So Sam held onto that shred of hope, and he hunted Lilith as fervently as he hunted himself. He could cleanse himself after she was gone, he could kill himself after she had died. He didn’t cut himself now, because the demon blood needed to stay inside him so he could kill Lilith, so he could kill them both.

Dean came back with an Angel in tow, and suddenly he was hopeful again. If an Angel could not purify him, who could?   
He went back to Ruby and drank her blood when Castiel called him an abomination. He was already considered one, so why not go all the way? 

By the time he killed Alistair, Sam had forgotten how to care. He did not care what the Angel thought of him, he did not care what the disease in him was, he did not care that he had Dean back. He had made it his mission to kill Lilith, and he intended to die in the process. 

He cut when he needed a hit of the diseased blood, there was enough in him to sate his needs for a while. 

He could feel the power of the church. He could sense how old, how archaic she was, and he could sense her tendrils of power, floating out to sense him and greet him. He answered with a wave of his blood-fuelled strength, and he felt something akin to triumph when he felt her recoil in fear.   
He was face to face with Lilith, and he hoped that this would be the end. This way, Dean wouldn’t have to kill him as he had promised in the voice mail. 

Lilith was dead, but Lucifer's Cage was open, and when had he failed so miserably? He was breathing and there was so much blood coursing in his veins, he was alive, and he shouldn’t be, Lilith should have been dead, and he should be dead with her, and that was to be the end of it. 

He said goodbye to Dean because Dean had Castiel, and he could see how Castiel made Dean happy, the way Dean deserved to be happy. Dean was the only human who could have gotten an Angel to fall for them.   
Sam cut again while he worked in that ordinary bar, there was too much blood, there was too much guilt, there was too much him, and it all needed to get out. 

The Devil spoke to him in his dreams, and Sam killed himself for real this time, but the Devil kept his promise and he brought him back every time. He was brought back every time. 

When Sam finally, finally realized how he could save the world, and damn himself while doing so, he was ecstatic.   
He made Dean promise, he was not coming back, he would stay dead, he would stay gone, what did it matter that the Devil would keep him company? 

Sam Winchester jumped into the Devil's Cage, with the Devil in his mind, and he was free from the dirty, bad, wrong, because now that was all he was.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave feedback, if you liked it, and if you didn't; feedback is always greatly appreciated. Once again, if you or anyone you know is suffering from thoughts like these, call your national helpline, and do not be afraid to get help. I am here to talk to as well, for anyone that needs it.


End file.
